


Matched Set and One of a Kind

by ADCurtis



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:20:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25604221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ADCurtis/pseuds/ADCurtis
Summary: One part of a matched set and the last of his kind find common ground between the desire to be unique and the need to belong. (Background Kataang)
Relationships: Aang/Katara (Avatar)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 43





	Matched Set and One of a Kind

“Aghh!”

Aang growled quietly to himself as he stopped the kata he had been walking through and brought his hand to his baldhead in frustration.

It had been another scorching day in Caldera City. But now that it was approaching dusk, the stifling air outside was beginning to cool minutely. And with a little prodding from the airbender standing in the center of the private courtyard off the back of his guesthouse, a gentle breeze now danced through the leaves of the Japanese maples that lined the outer walls, making the evening quite pleasant.

In the early days after the war, Aang had stayed at the Fire Palace with Zuko whenever he had work to do in the Fire Nation. But at some point over the last five years, Mai had observed that the longer Aang stayed in the palace, with all it’s rigid decorum and constant supervision by palace guards, the more wound up the free-spirited Avatar seemed to become. Aang would never complain about where he stayed (he was content to sleep just about anywhere), but Mai had suggested to Zuko that he find accommodations off the palace grounds for Aang whenever his stay was longer than a couple of days. And the change had worked well for everyone.

And this house was perfect. The house was small, but the Zen garden in the back courtyard was surprisingly peaceful given the guesthouse’s position in the center of the city. Aang was grateful for the illusion of solitude it gave for his meditation and bending practice.

But his practice wasn’t going so well today.

Aang started the kata again. He was reviewing an airbending form, an old intermediate level kata that he had mastered long before he’d even turned double digits. But as he went through the steps today, bringing his right arm across his left as his feet crossed behind him to prepare for an easy circular turn in the other direction, something about the way he was doing it felt wrong. He knew his thumb and forefinger curled to touching, leaving his other three fingers of his right hand extended. But his muscle memory was failing him; he couldn’t seem to remember for sure if his right palm should remain up toward the sky or turn to face inward. To anyone else this may seem an insignificant point, hardly worth a second thought. But this fault in his memory bothered him more than it ought to. He tried to clear his mind, to focus on the form rather than the deep seeded concern that if he couldn’t remember, then the integrity of the ancient form would be lost forever.

A noise from above him stole his attention from the form. Standing up strait he looked into the tree nearest him. “Hello? Is someone there?”

A giggle sounded in reply.

It was early summer and the leaves on the maples were thick. Aang stepped closer to the giggling tree and craned his neck to see up into the branches.

As he looked closer suddenly someone swung down, hanging upside down by her knees on a lower branch. Aang’s eyes opened wide in surprise as a pair of bright grey eyes looked back at him from a startlingly close distance.

“Oh!” Aang took a reflexive step backward. “Ty Lee?”

These days Aang was used to seeing Ty Lee decked out in her Kyoshi Warrior uniform and make-up. But right now she was dressed in a small two-piece top and skirt, the cut of which made Aang’s ears turn red. Ty Lee hanging upside down in a tree was the kind of sight most men wouldn’t be able to take their eyes off. Aang on the other hand, looked away embarrassed.

The girl giggled again, her long brunette braid dangling down playfully. “Hey there, Cutie!”

Aang rubbed at the back of his neck nervously, not sure if he ought to be uncomfortable with her choice of words. Ty Lee was notorious for flirting with pretty much everything that walked on two legs -- so much so that Aang had begun to wonder if she wasn’t really flirting at all, but just naturally gave off that vibe. “What… are you doing here?”

The gymnast grabbed the tree branch and flipped gracefully down to the ground. She landed closer to Aang than made him feel comfortable, causing him to take another step backward.

“Oh nothing much,” her voice tinkled impishly. “Just watching you train.”

“Oh!” Aang’s eyebrows drew together. _Why would she do that?_ His palms began to sweat, but Ty Lee didn’t seem phased at all.

“Watching you train is sooooo interesting!” The words were said with typical Ty Lee enthusiasm.

The admission startled Aang. But despite Aang’s discomfort he was ever loath to be confrontational. And he had no idea how to respond to that. “Heh heh…” his unsure laugh trailed off awkwardly.

Ty Lee clasped her hands behind her back and stepped closer to him, crooning, “Could you pleeease show me again?”

“Uhhh…” Despite the strangeness of this interaction, Aang’s brain seemed to go blank as to what he should do. “…sure. I guess?”

Ty Lee giggled again and clapped her hands, tipping up onto her tip-toes in eager anticipation.

Aang felt really weird, but not knowing what else to do, he took several large strides away and sunk into the starting stance, his palms faced up in front of him as he took a deep breath and began the kata again. His loose pants flowed with the breeze this form conjured up, the air in the courtyard beginning to swirl a little stronger.

_It was palm up._

The thought surprised him, but as his brain was trying to ignore the awkward feeling in his stomach at Ty Lee’s strange behavior, his body had preformed the form without conscious thought. And it was palm up. That part that had been bothering him earlier. He was sure of it now.

But a giggle brought him back once again to the awkward situation at hand.

Aang stopped his movement and stood up, rubbing the back of his neck again.

“Why’d you stop? You look am-A-zing when you move like that!”

The way her eyelids hooded heavily as she said the comment made him feel underdressed somehow. Why was Ty Lee acting so strange? Aang knew Ty Lee was her own kind of enthusiastic, and flirtatious was just her MO, but this? This was weird.

Looking for an excuse out of the situation, Aang looked back at the girl, crinkling his forehead in apology. “Sorry. I guess I… um, well I hurt my shoulder earlier this week sparing with Toph. Maybe I need to, um, just rest it for a bit.”

To Aang’s horror, Ty Lee cartwheeled toward him excitedly. “Oh I can help with that!” she exclaimed as she grabbed his hand and pulled him down onto his knees on the ground. Then she quickly took a place close behind him on her knees as well. “I’m greaaat at massage!”

Aang didn’t doubt that she was, but he regretted his lie immediately. 

As her seemingly well-practiced hands kneaded slowly at the muscles in his neck and shoulder, Aang’s brain started to buzz.

This wasn’t right.

Ty Lee knew he was dating Katara and had been for years now. He wasn’t exactly comfortable with this. But Aang was awful with situations that made him uncomfortable, ever worrying about offending someone.

But as the girl placed her palm heavily on his shoulder, her body leaned into him, her breasts pressing up against his back. Aang shot to his feet.

“Ah, I um, well… that isn’t quite… I don’t think that’s what I need… I mean my _shoulder_ needs.” Aang’s voice cracked embarrassingly as he backed away from her, his heart pounding painfully in his chest.

She stood up, her eyes never leaving him as she stalked toward him languidly. “Aww… don’t you like me, Aang?”

“I don’t really… _like_ girls.” Aang was fumbling over his words now as he nearly tripped over a tree root in his retreat backwards. “I mean, I don’t like any _other_ girls. Besides Katara. I mean, you know, she’s the one for me. The uh… _only_ one for me.”

“Too bad,” Ty Lee crooned as Aang’s back bumped against the trunk of one of the maples. She closed in, her large eyes looking up at him invitingly. “We could have soooo much _fun_ together…”

Ty Lee’s face tipped up to his, her full lips about to eliminate the space between them, but Aang squeaked and sidestepped the tree. A gust of wind sent the girl’s clothes flapping wildly; she crouched down to keep from being blown over.

Aang sprinted for the back door to the house. As he ran he thought he heard giggles from his left and right. But that must have been just his own imagination: like the whole world was laughing at him.

But as he looked back over his shoulder to be sure Ty Lee wasn’t following him, he bumped into someone in his path, sending them both sprawling. Aang used a little airbending to keep himself from smashing the person as they both tumbled to the grass.

As he lifted himself off the person he’d fallen on top of to see who he had just collided with, his mouth dropped open in pure disbelief. It was Ty Lee! But that was impossible! How did she…?

His head whipped around to see that the other Ty Lee was still standing back by the maple tree. She gave him a little wave and a wink.

Aang looked back down at the girl beneath him and yelped as he shot off her with some reflexive airbending. “How are you…?! I mean…?” Aang stammered as he looked back and forth between the two identical Ty Lee’s in his backyard.

Just then more giggles sounded from about the yard, as more women climbed out of his trees and even over the outer wall.

Aang was no stranger to disturbing dreams, but this didn’t _feel_ like a dream. Even though it sorta did. He dug his fingernails into the palm of his fist to be sure he felt the pain. Yup. He was sure he was awake.

Except that he couldn’t believe what his eyes were seeing.

The girls began to drop gracefully to the ground one by one and walk towards him. One, two, three… and there was one more flipping over the wall, that’s four. Five.

Aang shook his head in disbelief.

Aang wasn’t sure if this was supposed to be a dream come true, or a strait up nightmare.

The Ty Lee he had fallen on top of was back on her feet; Aang startled hard as she ran her hand across his shoulders on her way to join the others.

“Uhhh,” Aang put the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. But when he opened his eyes, they were still there. All six Ty Lees.

Nightmare. Definitely a nightmare.

“Don’t worry, Cutie. You’re not seeing things,” one of them said. A chorus of giggles rippled through the group of identical women.

Aang took another step backward, his stomach tightening.

“Look you’re scaring him!”

“I told you, you wouldn’t get anywhere with the Avatar, Ty Lao!”

“I could have done better.”

“Me too.”

“Whatever, Ty Lin! Ty Liu you wouldn’t have stood a chance!”

“Oooo,” another one said, “Ty Lao, you’re just salty because you’ve never been rejected before!”

“Shut up, Ty Lum!”

“Well I think you’re _all_ stupid.” Another one piped up, her arms folded crossly in front of her. “I just came to watch you humiliate yourself.”

“Liar! I saw how disappointed you were when you didn’t draw the white tile, Ty Woo!”

“Ummm… excuse me?” Aang’s voice sounded timid.

“Not true! I only played along because _you_ all were so confident you could seduce the Avatar. What was it you said Ty Lat? ‘The Avatar’d be clay in your hands within five minutes’?!”

“Well everyone _else_ is…”

“Excuse me?” Aang said a little bit louder, finally drawing the squabbling sisters’ attention back to him. “What..? I mean, _who_ are you?”

The girls all giggled again. One of them opened her mouth to reply, but before she could an angry voice sounded from behind him. “They’re my six awful sisters, of course!”

Aang turned around to see Ty Lee ( _this really was Ty Lee this time, right?_ ) all decked out in her Kyoshi Warrior uniform and make-up storming into the backyard from his house. She walked right past Aang and confronted the group of lookalikes, fists placed angrily on her hips.

“What do you think you are doing?! You _know_ I don’t want you meddling with my friends!”

“ _Your_ friend? From what I’ve heard the Avatar ‘belongs to the world’,” one of them said audaciously with a wink at Aang. The others all giggled in appreciation.

Another piped up, “We just wanted to meet him.” Then another, “’Cause he’s soooo cute!” “You don’t have to be so stingy, Ty Lee.”

Ty Lee (the real one) let out a growl. “Agh! You all are so infuriating!” Then pointing a finger accusingly at her sisters, “You should be glad that I’m here to keep you all from being arrested for ambushing the Avatar! Luckily one of my Kyoshi Sisters decided to alert _me_ to your infiltration rather than the Firelord’s military guard!”

“What?!” Aang looked at Ty Lee in surprise.

She shrugged. “You don’t think Zuko would leave you here unguarded did you?” she asked, a bit of her usual animated cadence back in her voice. “One or two of us Kyoshi Warriors are always… keeping an eye out, if you know what I mean.” Her wink at him then left Aang feeling weird again. With or without make-up, Ty Lee was definitely cut from the same cloth as the other women in front of him.

Aang choked on his tongue for a minute before finding his voice again. “So these… are your sisters?” He asked in surprise. “I didn’t even know you _had_ sisters, Ty Lee. You’ve never mentioned them to me before.”

One of the sisters huffed, crossing her arms and jutting out a hip. “Ty Lee thinks she’s too good for us.”

“Always pretending like we don’t exist!”

“Never bothering to introduce us to her _friends_.” The word was punctuated with a flirtatiously arched eyebrow at Aang.

Aang blinked. Ty Lee was… a bit much on a regular day. But multiply her by seven and it felt a lot like Aang imagined drinking a whole vat of General Fong’s special “chi enhancing” tea would be like. It was a bit overwhelming.

“This is why I don’t introduce you to anyone! You’re all just such… such… bad karma!” Ty Lee exclaimed throwing her hands in the air. Then she turned around and grabbed Aang by the wrist, dragging him behind her back into his house.

Once they were back inside the house Ty Lee turned around and, gripping the sliding double doors, yelled, “You all better get out of here or I’ll tell dad what you’ve been up to!” Then she slammed the door shut with an angry bang.

Aang was still trying to figure out what exactly was going on.

“Agh! They can be so infuriating sometimes!” Ty Lee exclaimed, tight fists clenched at her sides. “You have no idea what it is like trying to have a little privacy in your life when you’re one of seven identical septuplets!”

Aang’s eyes widened in surprise. Septuplets?! Was that even a thing? Aang hadn’t even known it was possible for one woman to birth seven kids at once! He shook his head wondering what that must have been for Ty Lee’s mother… 

“Oh! Well they seemed…” Aang cleared his throat searching for the right word, “um, friendly.”

Ty Lee blew at her bangs with an exasperated sigh. “They’re home for a vacation from the circus they travel with. I think they’re just bored tonight.”

“Yeah,” Aang rubbed at the back of his neck in embarrassment, remembering how strongly they came on to him. “…bored.”

Ty Lee harrumphed and crossed her arms, looking at the closed door. Aang observed the stiff set of her shoulders, and the narrowing of her large grey eyes. She was clearly getting lost in her own thoughts.

“So um…” Aang began, “would you like to stick around for a bit? I could make some tea?”

Ty Lee pulled her gaze back to Aang and sighed gratefully, “Sure,” she said, but her voice lacked some of its usual pep. “That sounds nice. I’m actually off duty for the night now anyway.”

Aang smiled kindly at her. Although they had shared the same group of friends for several years now, the two of them had never gotten particularly close. But Aang had always liked Ty Lee. She was upbeat and optimistic, and he liked how loyal she was to her friends. In some ways he thought that the two of them had a lot in common.

“Well feel free to leave your shoes there,” Aang said motioning to a short empty shoe rack as he bent down to remove his own soft-soled shoes.

“Thanks,” Ty Lee said pulling off her shoes and placing them on the rack. “Do you mind if I use your bathroom?”

“Sure! What’s mine is yours!” Aang said pointing towards his bedroom. “The bathroom is through to the bedroom that way. Feel free to make yourself at home.”

Ty Lee walked into his room and shut the door behind her while Aang made his way to the kitchen.

This classic little red-tile roofed house was small but had everything Aang needed: a comfortable bedroom and bathroom, a small kitchen and a common area with a raised platform in the middle for a tea table. Plus the amazing garden in the back, of course. This house reminded Aang quite a bit of the house his friend Kuzon had lived in when Aang was a kid; although Kuzon’s house had had two rooms and had been in the countryside, not smack dab in the middle of Caldera City like this place. Aang wondered idly if the two houses might have been built around the same time. It still struck Aang as strange sometimes to think that everything still existing from his childhood would be considered antique by now.

Aang put some dried chrysanthemum buds into the teapot’s strainer and bent a stream of water from the sink into the pot. With a quick puffed exhale he lit a merry little flame on the small burner under the pot. Although, as a Firebender, Aang could technically heat the water in seconds in his hands, Iroh had taught him that tea tasted best if heated slowly. Aang grabbed a couple of tea cups before taking the tray back into the common room and folding down onto a cushion at the tea table to wait for Ty Lee.

Aang drummed his fingers on the table. _Wonder what’s taking her so long?_

The water in the pot was already steaming by the time the door to his room slid open and out came Ty Lee, make-up all washed off and … _wearing his clothes_.

Aang gawked at her a moment, before consciously remembering to close his mouth. Ty Lee looked… cute, wearing one of his linen button-up shirts and a pair of his loose orange pants. Without meaning to Aang wondered how he could finagle a way for Katara to wear his clothes… But he quickly shook himself from the daydream and returned his attention to Ty Lee as she sat down across from him at the low table.

“I hope you don’t mind I borrowed some clothes,” she said, some of her usual cheerfulness back in her voice. “As much as I love being a Kyoshi Warrior, that uniform is just _so hot_!”

Aang laughed lightly. “Well I did say that what’s mine is yours. You’re welcome to them, Ty Lee.”

Aang poured tea for both of them, and then closed his eyes as he breathed in the familiar scent. Chrysanthemum tea had been a favorite of Monk Gyatso’s when he was a kid, the scent bringing both a sigh of home and a twinge of longing to Aang’s heart.

Ty Lee cleared her throat, pulling Aang back from his memories. “I’m sorry about my sisters, Aang. What they did was inexcusable,” she finished with a girlish huff.

“Oh… it’s no big deal,” Aang fibbed, feeling again an echo of the awkward alarm he experienced earlier in the yard. “So you’re a septuplet, huh? Well that’s pretty neat!”

“Neat.” Ty Lee grumbled. “More like stifling! You have no idea what it was like to grow up with six sisters who looked exactly like you. It’s like I had no identity at all!” Aang could see Ty Lee’s fist clench hard on the table. “Most of the time people never bothered to get to know us a individuals – I was just another piece of a matched set.”

Aang tried to imagine what that would be like. As a kid, it was a common joke among the other nations that the Air Nomads all looked alike. It was true that they generally dressed in similar clothes of oranges and yellows, and Aang supposed that his people’s shaved heads, grey eyes, and identical blue tattoos must have fed into that illusion. But they didn’t look the same to him. Gyatso could even tell every boy at the temple apart just looking at the backs of their heads! I guess one just had to get used to what differences to look for.

“Wow, I can see how that would be really hard, Ty Lee.” Aang offered empathetically.

“I think we intimidated people.” Ty Lee continued. “No one could tell us apart, so people felt uncomfortable trying to single any one of us out to get to know us. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve had a conversation with someone who didn’t know which Ty sister I was, and yet was too embarrassed to just say so, so they just _pretended_ they knew.” Ty Lee’s face fell. “Or sometimes, just avoided getting to know me at all because they didn’t want to get it wrong.”

“That would be really… isolating.” Aang said, noticing the sad look on the face of this usually chipper girl.

“Yeah. And discouraging.” Ty Lee agreed. “Because the few times I did find a friend of my very own, my sisters more often than not would ruin it. I mean, my first boyfriend ended up making out with two of my other sisters without even knowing it! Ty Lin and Ty Lum thought they were so funny. I was furious!”

Aang’s eyes widened in shock. He tried to imagine how it would be if Katara had an identical sister. And if he… mixed them up. Even as a blush appeared on his cheeks at the thought, Aang had to wonder if perhaps there was something wrong with Ty Lee’s sisters to let something like that happen willingly. He then remembered this evening how Ty Lee’s sister had seemed perfectly happy to let him mistake her identity – like when he’d called her Ty Lee, the sister had made no effort to correct him.

“Seems like that kind of problem, um… could be avoidable. If, you know, your sisters didn’t…” Aang trailed off awkwardly, not knowing the right way to phrase it.

“I know! But that is the most infuriating part!” Ty Lee exclaimed heatedly. “My sisters think it’s funny. Even making bets and things. Like tonight. I know they just wanted to see if they could score with the Avatar.”

Aang blushed an even deeper shade of crimson at the thought. “Oh, well, I… I’m with Katara, you know. And she’s, you know, _the one_ for me. So I wouldn’t…”

“ _I_ know that, Silly. And so should they. But they just like to think they can get any man they want.”

Aang had been out in public with Ty Lee before, and he wondered if this particular flirtatious quirk wasn’t perhaps a trait she shared in common with her sisters.

Aang cleared his throat awkwardly.

“But of course I would never try to break you and Katara up!” Ty Lee piped up passionately. “You two are just tooooooo CUTE!” If Aang hadn’t known better, he imagined he would have seen little hearts bursting from Ty Lee’s large glowing eyes.

“Um, thanks, Ty Lee.” Aang said, a smile flashing on his cheek. He rubbed his palms on the fabric of his pant legs, both simultaneously comforted and a little unsettled by this admission. “I appreciate that… I guess.”

Ty Lee looked at the back door, as though she could see through the wooden slats and paper to the garden outside. Aang wondered if her sisters had all left as she had instructed.

“Even our dad couldn’t tell us apart. He just masked it by calling us all “my little Ty”. And our nannies when we were kids had to dress us in different colors to know who was who.”

“Let me guess,” Aang said with a good-natured smile, “You were pink?”

Ty Lee laughed a little. “You guessed it.” She took a sip of her tea, testing the temperature. “But in some ways I guess I even let that determine who I am now. Like this,” she gestured to Aang’s yellow shirt that she was wearing. “To me, this is Ty Woo’s color. So I never wear it. How sad is that that I’ve defined who I am based on trying to be who I’m not?”

Aang’s eyebrows raised in sympathy, and in usual fashion he thought of a way he could build her up. “Well it looks good on you. You should wear yellow more,” he said with a genuine smile.

Ty Lee smiled down at her teacup, a heavy sigh blowing the steam away from her face. “Thanks, Aang” she said before taking a small sip.

Ty Lee set her tea down. “Septuplets are so rare, so unusual, that everyone knew us. But no one knew _me_.” Ty Lee’s shoulders sagged. “The same thing that made us known, made me feel completely _unknown_. Like I could just disappear.”

Aang felt her words resonate inside his own chest, her sentiment echoing a feeling he had felt himself. The circumstance was obviously opposite: he wasn’t lost in a crowd of lookalikes -- Aang had _no one_ like him left – but the feeling of being unknown was familiar.

Everyone knew Aang was the Avatar. And in this century, he was the only person left with his distinctive Air Nomad facial features, clothing and tattoos; this exclusivity making it such that he could hardly walk outside without being recognized. But he still felt like he understood how Ty Lee felt. Like everyone knew of him. But so few people actually _knew_ him.

Thank goodness for Katara. With her in his life, he always knew at least one person knew the real Aang.

“Is that why you ran away to join the circus?” Aang asked perceptively.

“Yeah,” Ty Lee said. “In the circus I was just me. And I was unique! And I loved working with other people who were also so unique.”

Ty Lee’s face fell minutely. “But then Azula came… and I left with her and… things happened. And when the war was over I found out that my sisters had gone to look for me in the colonies. And when they found my circus, the owner actually hired them as acrobats too. So that’s what they do now. They perform at my circus. They call themselves ‘The Ty Sisters’.”

“Oh wow, I’ve heard of them!” Aang exclaimed. “Their act is really famous!” Aang checked his enthusiasm when he saw the hardening of Ty Lee’s mouth at his words. “But I had no idea they were, you know, _your_ sisters.”

“It’s okay,” Ty Lee answered. “I prefer it that way. I guess I’m just glad that I left the circus before they joined it.” Ty Lee gave a small smile. “And I have my Kyoshi Sisters now, so I guess we are all happy. It’s just still hard for me when they come home and I find myself being lumped back in with them again.”

“I know it’s not the same,” Aang offered, “But as a kid, the other boys from the temple and me got mixed up all the time.” He pointed to his head, “I guess the matching bald heads threw people off.”

Ty Lee giggled, examining his tattooed head. “Funny, I can’t imagine anyone being like you. You are the singular most unique person in the whole world these days!”

Aang swallowed past a lump that formed unbidden in his throat.

During the war, Aang had been forced to cope with the loss of his people out of absolute necessity. But he knew he hadn’t fully dealt with his grief at the time. He had just shoved it into the background of his mind while he frantically fought to save the world. But now that he was older (nearly nineteen now) and the war ended years ago, he found that grief for his lost nation could sneak up on him when he was least expecting it.

Aang stamped down his sudden emotion and put on his usual mask of cheerfulness, “I guess you might be right.” Aang said in agreement. “But you see, when I was a kid, I was just one of many. Just like any other Air Nomad kid. I didn’t know I was the Avatar back then.”

Ty Lee tilted her head in interest as she listened.

Aang laughed once, “I remember this one time a pack of us boys rode our sky bison down to one of the Earth Kingdom festivals on Whale Tail Island. There was a lady there selling fruit who thought we were really cute, so she offered each of us “little air boys” a free slice of watermelon. But like so many people from the other nations, she couldn’t tell us apart.” A nostalgic smile quirked on Aang’s cheek. “So my buddy, Jinpa, stood behind the fruit stall and held all our slices while the rest of us just kept circling around and getting back in line for another slice.” He laughed, remembering the confused look on the woman’s face when a seeming endless stream of bald little monk boys kept putting out their little hands for more melon slices. “I think I ended up eating a whole half watermelon just by myself!” Aang could almost taste the drippy sweetness of the watermelon, remembering how hard it had been to eat that year because he had just lost his two big front teeth. The memory made him smile, even as the sadness that always skirted around the edges of these kinds of memories settled in his stomach.

“Of course to me, I didn’t see how someone could think we all looked alike — we all looked unique in our own eyes, but it was crazy to me how often others couldn’t identify the differences.” Aang’s smile fell. He looked past Ty Lee’s shoulder, his eyes unfocused as he said, “What I wouldn’t give to be mistaken for someone else sometimes these days.”

A long beat of silence later Aang continued. “There’s something about that kind of brotherhood, that kind of belonging, that…” Aang stopped, not sure he could trust his voice. “That I really miss.”

Ty Lee looked at him searchingly before she reached across the small table and gripped Aang’s hand with her own. “I know that about you already, you know.”

She answered Aang’s questioning eyebrow, “I mean, your aura. I can tell you aren’t always as happy as you seem to everyone else. Not that you are faking all the time -- I mean really Aang, I’ve never met anyone with such a vibrant golden yellow aura! But it’s just that, around the edges…” Ty Lee’s voice softened. “I can tell you’ve got a lot of sadness too.”

Aang’s heart twinged. He hadn’t been aware that Ty Lee could tell that about him. “Yeah. I guess I do,” he admitted in a whisper.

“But you know when I notice it he least?” Ty Lee asked, a knowing sparkle in her eyes.

“No. When?” Aang asked, genuinely curious. Aang couldn’t see auras; but he had no doubt that Ty Lee could.

“When you’re with Katara.”

“Oh.”

Ty Lee’s mouth turned up in a sparkling smirk. “Yeah, when you are with Katara your aura is a pulsing violet!”

Aang wasn’t sure what that meant exactly, but he couldn’t help the dopy toothy smile that forced its way onto his face. He couldn’t see auras, but he knew exactly what it _felt_ like to be around Katara. So he didn’t doubt that violet must be a good thing. Thinking about his girlfriend suddenly filled him with an acute ache to be with her again. He was already counting down the days until her arrival, but the remaining half-week still felt like an eternity.

Ty Lee gave his hand a reassuring squeeze as she giggled conspiratorially. “Don’t worry; Katara will be here before you know it!”

“Thanks, Ty Lee.” Aang blushed. “That really helps.”

Aang took his hand back to pick up his teacup and bring it to his lips. He was just starting to daydream about his upcoming reunion with Katara, wondering what she would look like in yellow, when Ty Lee spoke, bringing him back to the present.

“You know, Aang, talking with you has helped me too.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. As much as my sisters annoy me, and as difficult as it is to eek out my own identity when they are around.” Ty Lee sighed in resignation. “I really am grateful to have them. They are my sisters, and I’m really lucky. So much of who I am is because of them. And despite all the ways they frustrate me, I really do love them.”

Aang smiled, contemplating the very complicated human need to be both unique and to belong.

“Well if it matters,” Aang began regarding the tightrope walking chi-blocker across from him, “I’ve always considered you one of the most unique people I’ve ever known, Ty Lee. As far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t matter how many people look like you…”

Aang tried not to flinch at the sting this particular term brought to his heart as he continued.

“You are one of a kind.”

……………..


End file.
